


Between The Lines

by shinychimera



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Misunderstanding, hc-bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-03
Updated: 2010-07-03
Packaged: 2017-10-10 09:02:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/97958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinychimera/pseuds/shinychimera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kirk and McCoy learn how not to talk to each other during their first quarter at the Academy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Between The Lines

**Author's Note:**

> _Disclaimer:_ Not ours, never were, no profit.  
> _Notes:_ Beta by [Yeomanrand](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Yeomanrand/). Fill for [Hurt/Comfort Bingo](http://community.livejournal.com/hc_bingo/) for "Character is shown the error of his or her ways".  
> Started as comment fic in the [Jim_and_Bones](http://community.livejournal.com/jim_and_bones/) community, based on two photos of Kirk (Chris Pine) and McCoy (Karl Urban) in traveling gear.

See, the thing is, guys are dumb. Smart guys, too -- dumb all the time, maybe even more than dumb guys because we think we've got it all figured out.

Take me and Bones. We'd started this great thing between us on the shuttle, and it was all based on reading between the lines. Okay, he out and told me he'd gotten a divorce, but the civvies and the flask and the five-o'clock-two-days-ago-shadow -- I knew without ever asking what the divorce had done to him, and how brilliant he had to be to have gotten recruited anyway. And he read the bruises on my face and my knuckles, and the way I didn't have any cargo to collect on the other end, and he never asked about that either. We just kind of snugged into being friends without ever having to _talk_ about it.

I learned about his daughter the same way, just figuring it out from the way he talked about patients with kids, or patients who _were_ kids. So one day he just started talking about her. He saw that I ate it up: the way he shared his memories of Joanna, and the drawings she sent to his padd, and her stories about tadpoles and kittens and scraped knees, and he let me love her a little by proxy, and we never discussed why maybe I liked to hear so much about what a good dad he tried to be.

So it was coming up on the end of the quarter, and all the other folks around us were chattering about their plans for the holidays, but really smart practically telepathic guys don't need that, right?

I found this fantastic old book of Andersen fairy tales when I was poking around the city, with the full page color illos and the gilt on the edges of the pages, and I brought it to his room.

“Hey Bones,” I said, thumping the book onto the bed next to him. “You make sure to tell her that's from me, right? You have to get her your own present.”

And he gave me this look, and I don't quite know how to describe it. The green in his eyes was sad and still, like a pond in the woods that no one ever visits 'cause it's too small to swim in. And there's this ring of brown flecks around the edges, that gets all dark when his eyes go narrow and quizzical like that. And I think, _he's worried about me_, and that was a nice warm thought because it was going to be lonely without him, but then I think, _he's gonna feel guilty about going home_ and _his daughter needs him._

So I gave him this big grin, and I said, “I wish shopping for Lieutenant Commander Mom was so easy. If only she was the ‘seeing you is gift enough’ type of mother...”

His lips pursed, and he decided I must be going home, and the line of his shoulders sagged in relief. _Mission accomplished_, I thought, _good job being unselfish Jim for once._ So I dealt with my final exams while letting these hints drop between the lines about how great Hanukkah was going to be back in Iowa, and he told me funny wistful stories about Christmas in Georgia, and both of us tried to get in the holiday spirit when it was all balmy blue skies outside.

On the last day of finals, he came to my room to say goodbye and he was dragging this awful blue rolling case and had really stupid sunglasses on, and I scoffed and made fun of him to convince him I was going to be fine. And guy-like, he handed me this little brown package, all casual and uncaring.

[](http://s4.photobucket.com/albums/y135/shinychimera/Star%20Trek/Eye%20Candy/?action=view&current=spl99338_001_pine.jpg)“Thanks,” I said, dropping the package (just as casually) into the carry-on bag full of random toiletries that I'd set up as a convincing prop. And I had to pull out _my_ sunglasses too, because California can be really fucking bright in December, you know.

Then I dug in the back pocket of my black jeans and flicked a festive little green envelope at him, only a little the worse for wear after being toted around all day. He grabbed it, and grimaced just like I'd planned at the “Bones” that I'd printed in big 3-D superhero block letters on the front.

“Infant,” he said, like that was supposed to offend me somehow, and with a toe he nudged the shoulder bag on the floor -- my other prop. “Heading out soon? We could walk down to the shuttle port together.”

“Um, yeah,” I said, trying to think fast. Bones tucked the card into the inner pocket of the leather jacket folded over his arm, which reminded me that I was supposed to be going Someplace Cold, so I slung my favorite blue sweater over my shoulder, gathered up my bags, and made a show of shutting everything down.

And we walked together through the Academy campus, down to the hangars, and I said some meaningless manly shit, socked him on the arm, and waved over my shoulder at him as I peeled off to go to “my” shuttle.

I admit, I looked back just before I slipped out the side door (the humanoid-sized one, not the shuttle-sized one). Bones was waiting in a line with his head down, and I was sure he was fretting about the flight, and I wished I'd thought to get him a magazine or something to distract him during the ride. Too late, though, and I stepped out of his line of sight, into the blazing sunshine, before he could look up.

I dawdled around the back side of the hangar for a while, long enough for him to get boarded. Then I found my way out through the forklift yard and back around front, looking down at my sneakers and trying to figure out what I was going to do next. And then after that. And tonight. And tomorrow.

[](http://s4.photobucket.com/albums/y135/shinychimera/Star%20Trek/Eye%20Candy/?action=view&current=15n6h4j.jpg)And that's when I heard his voice. “Jim!”

I looked up and there he was, standing all aghast in the shadowed entry to the hangar, still dragging his stupid case, still wearing his stupid sunglasses, only now he was wearing the stupid leather jacket and looking like he was about to wilt or faint or something.

“Uhh...” I said, intelligently. “Did you miss your flight or something? You didn’t chicken out, did you?”

“Uhh...” he said, intelligently. “No...no, I didn't chicken out.”

We looked at each other. Intelligently. Nigh on telepathically.

“You fucking liar!”

“Unbe-goddamn-lievable!”

“You said you were going!”

“No, you said _you_ were going.”

“I never said -- ”

“No, you never did, you asshole.”

“_I'm_ the asshole? You let me think you were going to see your little girl --”

And I snapped my jaw shut on that one. I goddamn _hate_ it when life fucking sucks like that.

He glared at me. I glared at him. Intelligently. Yeah.

He actually harrumphed, disrupting the stasis at last. “She's spending Christmas in _orbit_ with mummy and the step-dad. What's your excuse?”

“No one home.”

“No one?” He pulled his sunglasses off slow like a sticky bandage, like breaking the gaze between us too sharply might hurt somehow.

I shrugged, looking down at my feet. Letting him read between the lines didn't seem like enough, anymore.

Uncomfortable, I tugged on the sleeve of the sweater twisted around my neck. “Dad's dead, and so are all the grandparents. Step-dad's long gone and good riddance. Haven't seen or heard from my brother since I was twelve. And she's out somewhere near Coridan, I think, keeping an eye on the Romulans.”

My crappy life, in barest outline. And more than I'd ever told anyone, out loud.

He just looked at me for a few seconds.

“Yeah, okay. You win.”

I twisted my startled, involuntary grin into a sour squint, and with a cynical twinkle in his eye Bones reached up and scratched his stubbled chin and, just like that, we were okay again. He didn't say a word, just reached down and grabbed the handle of his stupid suitcase, and I hitched my bag up over my shoulder, and we walked back up the hill to figure out what we were _really_ going to do during the break.


End file.
